LEARNING AND LAWYERING ACROSS … Weinstein...LEARNING AND LAWYERING ACROSS PERSONALITY TYPES ......

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LEARNING AND LAWYERING ACROSSPERSONALITY TYPES

IAN WEINSTEIN*

ABSTRACT

Personality theory illuminates recurring problems in law schoolteaching. While the roots of modern personality theory extend backto Hippocrates and the theory of the four humors, contemporaryideas owe much to Carl Jung’s magisterial book, PsychologicalTypes. Jung’s work gave us the categories of introvert and extrovert,as it explored what has come to be understood as the cognitive basesfor our habits of mind. These are powerful ideas but also complexand sometimes obscure. Applying them to law school teaching andlearning (and law practice) can be very fruitful, if we pay careful at-tention to ourselves and colleagues, the structure of the ideas we con-vey, the complexity of the skills we aim to sharpen and the settings inwhich we teach and learn. While the theory has something to sayabout teaching and learning in large groups, the most widely citedpedagogic notion that flows from personality type theory — the claimthat teachers should match their mode of presentation to the learningstyles of the students — is not among them. In the large classroom,we might better match our modes of presentation to the structure ofthe ideas we are conveying than varying our presentations to appealto a heterogeneous group of personality types. But when we workwith individual students and small groups to build problem solving,interpersonal and collaborative skills, personality type theory can bea powerful guide to how we teach as well as a useful set of ideas forour students. This paper discusses Jungian Personality Theory andthe lessons it offers in a variety of teaching and learning settings inlaw school.

INTRODUCTION

Each law student, like any person, is characterized by the particu-lar combination of emotional responses, behaviors, and thought pat-terns that make up his or her personality. The idea that each person’scomplex set of individual differences can be analyzed into constituent

* Associate Dean for Clinical and Experiential Programs, Professor of Law, FordhamUniversity School of Law. Thanks to Stephen Ellmann, the participants in the New YorkLaw School Clinical Theory Workshop, and my stellar research assistants, Sydney Fetten,Kathleen Zink, Devan Grossblatt, and Amanda Katlowitz.

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components and categorized traces back to Hippocrates and the the-ory of the four humors.1 This ancient idea takes contemporary formin personality psychology, a field which offers a largely descriptive,empirically driven branch, personality trait theory, and the more ana-lytic and theory driven school of personality type theory. Modernpersonality type theory, which hypothesizes that sets of traits vary to-gether, grew out of the work of the great Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.His magisterial book, Psychological Types,2 first popularized the ideasof introversion and extraversion and categorized people by their pref-erences in three psychic dimensions he believed fundamental.3

Legal education has long been quite sensitive to dimensions ofindividual difference among law students other than personality. Lawstudents are rigorously sorted for their aptitude in abstract reasoningand for their prior academic achievement in the law school applicationprocess, and they are re-sorted in that dimension by law school exams.In recent years, legal education has become a bit more attentive toother dimensions of individual difference as appreciation for the com-plexity of modern professional practice has deepened.4 We havegrown more ambitious, aiming to challenge students intellectuallywhile also better preparing them for the social and emotional dimen-sions of being a lawyer. Personality theory can help us meet thoseambitions.

Application of these complex and sometimes obscure ideas to lawschool teaching and law practice can be tricky. Useful work withthese ideas requires careful attention to ourselves, our students, thestructure of the ideas we convey and the complexity of the skills weaim to sharpen in our students. In the large classroom, personalitytheory can give us some useful insights. However, the most widelycited pedagogic notion that flows from personality type theory, theclaim that teachers should match their mode of presentation to thelearning styles of the students, is not among them. In the large class-room, we might better match our modes of presentation to the struc-

1 Genuine Works of Hippocrates Translated From the Greek (Francis Adams, LL.D.trans. 1886); see also Galen’s Doctrine of the Four Temperaments, ELSEVIER’S DICTION-

ARY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES (2006), available at http://www.credoreference.com/entry/estpsyctheory/galen_s_doctrine_of_the_four_temperaments.

2 CARL G. JUNG, PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES (1933).3 See infra pp. 10-15.4 See William M. Sullivan, et al., Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of

Law (“the Carnegie Report”) (2007); American Bar Association Section of Legal Educa-tion and Admissions to the Bar, Legal Education and Professional Development – An Edu-cational Continuum: Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession:Narrowing the Gap (“the MacCrate Report”) (1992); DONALD A. SCHON, EDUCATING

THE REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER: TOWARD A NEW DESIGN FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

IN THE PROFESSIONS (1st ed. 1987).


Spring 2015] Personality Types 429

ture of the ideas we are conveying than varying our presentations toappeal to a heterogeneous group of personality types. In other set-tings, when we work with individual students and small groups tobuild problem-solving, interpersonal, and collaborative skills, person-ality type theory can be a powerful guide to how we teach as well as auseful set of ideas to teach to our students.

This article proceeds in five parts. Part I provides an overview ofPersonality Theory and places Carl Jung’s thought in context amongsome other significant thinkers in 20th Century psychology. Part IIexplores Jung’s thought in more detail, focusing on several key ideasunderlying his type theory, ideas which can inform teaching andlearning. Part III applies Jung’s type theory to teaching in the largeclass setting. Part IV applies theory to teaching small group and toprofessional practice with a focus the Jungian influenced Myers-BriggsType Indicator (MBTI). Part V discusses my experiences, utilizingboth Jung’s type theory and the MBTI in teaching and clinicalsupervision.

I. PERSONALITY THEORY — TRAITS AND TYPES

Gordon Allport, a leading academic personality psychologist ofthe mid-twentieth century defined personality as “the dynamic organi-zation within the individual of those psychophysical systems that de-termine his characteristic behavior and thought.”5 Allport is one ofthe founders of contemporary personality trait theory, which providesa useful descriptive framework for categorization of human personal-ity. The most widely used contemporary variation on trait theory isthe Big Five Factor Model,6 an approach to personality driven moreby data than theory.7 Using surveys, psychologists collected data onthe distribution and combination of traits among a given population to

5 GORDON W. ALLPORT, PATTERN AND GROWTH IN PERSONALITY, 28 (1961).6 See generally RAYMOND B. CATTELL, PERSONALITY, A SYSTEMATIC THEORETICAL

AND FACTUAL STUDY (1st ed. 1950) (outlining an objective and theoretical approach toorganizing personality factors); see also RAYMOND B. CATTELL, THE SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS

OF PERSONALITY (1965) (further developing a multiple-factor system to theories of person-ality). Consensus exists today concerning the Big Five factors: Extraversion, Agreeable-ness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. See Robert R. McCrae & Paul T.Costa, Jr., Comparison of EPI and psychoticism scales with measures of the five-factormodel of personality, 6 PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 587 (1985); see alsoRobert R. McCrae & Oliver P. John, An Introduction to the Five-Factor Model and ItsApplications, 60 J. OF PERSONALITY 175 (1992) (summarizing the history of the five-factormodel and the nature and theories surrounding the five factors).

7 Allport’s approach to personality mirrors Charles Spearman’s work on intelligence –each sought empirical evidence for the contours of the psychological entities they studied.See CHARLES SPEARMAN, THE NATURE OF “INTELLIGENCE” AND THE PRINCIPLES OF COG-

NITION (2d ed. 1927); see also GORDON W. ALLPORT, PERSONALITY: A PSYCHOLOGICAL

INTERPRETATION (1937).



build clusters of related personality tendencies. Open people will tendto like art, hold unconventional beliefs, and be interested in newideas. You can find art lovers among those who attend the most tradi-tional churches, but if you want to sell the most memberships to an artmuseum, you might better look in places where people with uncon-ventional beliefs are likely to collect. On the other hand, sociability,which many might first think of as a part of openness, is associatedwith extraversion, a distinct trait as personality trait theorists dividethings up. Making people feel at ease, which might be part of sociabil-ity, is a subtrait of agreeableness. Although we understand how a per-son can be open but not sociable or agreeable, as those traits aredefined, the contours of each trait are not necessarily intuitive to all.The Big Five Factor Model,8 sometimes called the Big Five or referredto by the acronym OCEAN, measures openness, conscientiousness,extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, and it is a valid instru-ment for sorting large populations and screening for outliers.

But trait theory, exemplified by the Big Five, is largely descrip-tive. Allport wrote, “Individuality is a prime characteristic of humannature . . . We need laws of learning, of perception, of cognition . . .but we also need a special point of view in order to bring these generalprinciples to converge upon the individuality of pattern that comprisespersonality.”9 But no “special point of view” has yet emerged uponwhich the ideas of personality trait theory have decisively converged.For Allport and some others, sorting into incompletely theorized cate-gories in an effort to resolve the common perception that each per-son’s personality is both unique and common is incoherent.10 Yetthere are those for whom considering each half of the apparent antin-omy of consistency among variations creates a pleasing, harmoniouswhole.

That sort of person may be more drawn to personality type the-ory, an approach pioneered by Carl Jung that has proven a rich inspi-ration for three related sets of ideas that continue to speak to manyeducators. While trait theory holds that traits vary independently,type theory hypothesizes deeper underlying structures of personalitythat cause traits to vary together. Type theory looks to a middleground between the aggregate and the individual, seeking to identifystructures of personality that are more than just descriptions of indi-

8 See McCrae & Costa, supra note 6.9 See ALLPORT, supra note 5, at 21. Allport goes on to use the technical framing.

“The psych of personality is not exclusively nomothetic nor exclusively idiographic. Itseeks an equilibrium between the two extremes . . . often we find that the picture of per-sonality offered is that of an uncemented mosaic of elements and test scores, or of frag-mentary processes, never vitally interrelated.” Id.

10 See id. at 16.



vidual traits that come together in particular people. We are all typetheorists when we play the ninja/pirate game11 or otherwise dividethose we know into categories or groups.

Personality type theory, the idea that people can be categorizedby their characteristic preferences in certain fundamental mentalprocesses, has come to play a significant role in contemporary educa-tional theory through the cognitive style literature, exemplified by thework of theorists like Herman Witkin12 and Neil Fleming,13 who giveus the embedded figure and VARK instruments. This line of thinkingis the genesis of the modern mantra in education that different stu-dents learn in different ways. There is also an important psychometri-cally inflected version of type theory in Robert Sternberg’s work onthinking styles.14 The third and most distinctively Jungian branch isbest represented by the well known and sometimes criticized Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).15 Personality psychology presents thelaw professor interested in teaching with a rich, complex, and notwholly satisfying body of literature, instruments, and current practices.

While each of these thinkers offers a perspective from which wecan learn, the fractured field of personality psychology offers no pow-erful model for how personality relates to learning, and the field hasno instrument that predicts learning variation associated with person-ality types analogous to Wechsler-based intelligence testing.16 Thatbeing said, these thinkers offer insights that some of us, depending onour personality type, will find very interesting and useful, while others

11 According to the Internet meme, based upon a video game, in the epic battle be-tween pirates and ninjas, each of us belongs to one side or the other. Pirates Versus Ninjas,WIKIPEDIA (June 11, 2013, 12:42 PM), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_versus_Ninjas. Itest as a ninja. See Pirates or Ninjas, QUIZ ROCKET (June 11, 2013, 12:43 PM), http://www.quizrocket.com/pirate-vs-ninja-quiz.

12 HERMAN A. WITKIN, PERSONALITY THROUGH PERCEPTION, AN EXPERIMENTAL AND

CLINICAL STUDY (1954); see also Herman A. Witkin, Individual Differences in Ease of Per-ception of Embedded Figures, 19 J. OF PERSONALITY 1 (1950) (describing differencesamong subjects in discovering the simple figure within the complex, embedded one).

13 NEIL D. FLEMING & COLLEEN MILLS, Not Another Inventory, Rather a Catalyst forReflection, 11 TO IMPROVE THE ACADEMY 137 (1992), available at http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1245&context=podimproveacad.

14 See ROBERT J. STERNBERG, THINKING STYLES (1997); HANDBOOK OF INTELLEC-

TUAL STYLES: PREFERENCES IN COGNITION, LEARNING, AND THINKING (Li-fang Zhang,Robert J. Sternberg & Stephen Rayner eds., 2012).

15 See ISABEL BRIGGS MYERS, MBTI MANUAL: A GUIDE TO THE DEVELOPMENT AND

USE OF THE MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR (3d ed. 1998); see also ISABEL BRIGGS MY-

ERS & PETER B. MYERS, GIFTS DIFFERING: UNDERSTANDING PERSONALITY TYPE (1995).See Robert R. McCrae & Paul T. Costa, Jr., Reinterpreting the Myers-Briggs Type IndicatorFrom the Perspective of the Five-Factor Model of Personality, 57 J. OF PERSONALITY 1(1989), for an analysis of the MBTI through a Jungian theory perspective.

16 See DAVID WECHSLER, THE MEASUREMENT AND APPRAISAL OF ADULT INTELLI-

GENCE (4th ed. 1958) (describing the theory, application and results of the Wechsler Belle-vue Intelligence Scale (W-B I) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)).



will find them frustratingly opaque, incomplete, and without practicalapplication.

II. JUNG’S PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES

Ideas quite similar to personality type theory can be traced backto the ancients,17 and the eternal battle between Platonists and Aris-totelians can have much of the flavor of personality type theory. Swisspsychiatrist Carl Jung offered the first modern theory of personalitytypes.18 Rather than collecting traits, as Allport had, Jung theorizedabout recurring patterns of unconscious thought,19 revealing the basictendencies of the human psychic process. Drawing on his own studyof both Western and other spiritual practices, an extensive clinicalpractice and his own inner experience, Jung identified and argued forthree axes of personality: extroversion/introversion,20 or the tendencyto seek information in either the outside world or inner experience,sensation/intuition,21 the tendency to perceive parts and divisions orwholes, and thinking/feeling, the difference between deciding bycounting reasons and deciding by feeling.22

Jung’s work on personality is complex. Several strands in histhinking remain central to contemporary personality psychology. Heintroduced the terms introversion and extraversion and identifiedthem as the poles of the axis that primarily defines human personality.That axis remains a central organizing principle. For Jung, the funda-mental psychological process relates our inner experience, the subject,to our outer experience, the object. According to Jung, an extrovert’spsychic energy more easily flows outward, toward the object. The ex-trovert feels at ease or energized and engaged when his or her psychicenergy plays or focuses upon the outer world. Reflection, or the in-ward projection of energy, can require more effort and become tiringfor the extrovert.

The introvert, in contrast, prefers to project psychic energy in-ward. For him or her, reflection or subjective focus is energizing,while the projection of energy toward the object can become tiring

17 Hippocrates’ theory of the four humors is the earliest known example of type theory.18 See JUNG, supra note 2.19 Jung famously broke with Freud over the nature and value of the unconscious. In

Jung’s view, the unconscious was the source of important, positive human feelings andideas, as well the fears and negative emotions on which Freud focused.

20 Extraversion/introversion is also one axis in the Big Five. For a discussion of the fivefactors, see supra note 6 and accompanying text.

21 I have always thought this axis bore a strong family resemblance to the debate be-tween the empiricists and rationalists. In college philosophy courses, John Locke oftenrepresents the sensation side and Gottfried Leibniz presents the intuitionist perspective.

22 Here, I think more of the Romantics and Classicists of the turn of the eighteenth tothe nineteenth centuries, but that opposition is also an ancient one.



and require effort. The extrovert gains energy from a crowd and seeksthe stimulation of the outer world of objects, while the crowd tires theintrovert, who prefers the experience of reflection on the subject orinner life. Importantly, this axis does not tell us who will enjoy a partyor who will be lively and engaging in a group. Introversion and extra-version are not measures of social grace; they are ideas about one’scharacteristic stance or preference in mediating between our subjec-tive or inner life and the outer world. Another way to think of thisopposition is to ask, does a person characteristically turn to his or herown inner experience or to the outside world? Do you live in yourhead or in the world? Is your inner life or the outer world a morecongenial focus for your attention?

Of course, most of us live both in our heads and in the world. Aswith all aspects of personality, the question is tendencies, preferences,and characteristic modes. The introvert favors or tends toward subjec-tive modes, but most spend a good deal of psychic energy focusedupon and are quite alive to the objective or outer world. Each type isreasonably comprehensible to the other, neither has a superior per-spective, and no particular view, outcome or result flows inevitablyfrom a type.

In addition to one’s attitude toward the problem of mediating be-tween our inner life and the outer world, Jung also identified two pairsof opposed functions. The four functions are the set of irreduciblepsychic activities,23 or basic, fundamental psychological processes. Incontemporary terms, as I will argue below, we might understand themas the modes of managing information. The sensation/intuition pair-ing captures the two modes of perception. According to Jung, sensa-tion is conscious perception: the appreciation or consciousness of theredness of the flower, along with all its other attributes, as well as theconcepts, feelings and other mental entities that combine in themental experience of seeing a flower.24 Intuition, in contrast, is un-conscious perception. To the intuitive perceiver, content is presentedas a whole, without ready access to analysis of its constituent parts.25

So, the flower is seen as a flower by the intuitive perceiver, not as ared, sweet-smelling, five-petaled organism that is called a flower.

In Jung’s view, while sensing is conscious and intuition is uncon-scious, both are irrational. The experience is not subject to significantchange through reflection; one sees the flower or sees the redness andpetals, and further mental focus does not alter that experience.

Thinking and feeling are the two rational functions through which

23 See JUNG, supra note 2, at 547.24 See id. at 585.25 Id. at 568.



we use our mental faculties to shape thought, feeling and action.26

Thinking, Jung observes, involves the application of a set of rules orprocesses to arrive at a conceptual connection among ideas.27 Thosewith a preference for thinking apply rules and take a process approachto thinking and shaping action. Feeling, in contrast, is a subjectiveprocess that relies upon value, or the opposition of liking and dislik-ing, to shape thought and action.28 We might think of the differencebetween counting reasons and weighing preferences as the primarymodes of choosing among alternatives.

These three oppositions or axes combined in predictable ways forJung. Each person has a dominant attitude, either introverted or ex-troverted. Then the four functions must be ordered. The two pairs offunctions identify exclusive modes. While most people can feel andthink, in Jung’s view, they cannot do both at the same time, as is alsotrue of sensing and intuiting. So, Jung argued that each person has adominant attitude and a dominant function. The function opposingthe dominant function, in Jung’s view, recedes into the unconsciousand is rarely used. In early work, he distinguished eight types, accord-ing to attitude and dominant function. He also theorized that the pre-ferred function of the remaining pair, whether it is the rational orirrational pairing, is the auxiliary or secondary function. In laterwork, Jung noted the likely existence of more types, drawing out theidea that the two sensing categories, introverted and extroverted, maybe subdivided among the sensing feelers and the sensing thinkers, butnever sensing intuitionists, as sensing and intuition are opposed toeach other. One of the best known and most strongly Jungian con-temporary type theories, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, expandsJung’s eight categories to sixteen with the addition of the auxiliaryfunction and a fourth axis.

While Jung warned that correct classification of any individualcan require extensive interviewing and analysis, some will find an il-lustration useful. So, I offer the suggestion that the two figures I havediscussed, Allport and Jung, are of two different types. While bothwere likely introverts, as academics tend to be, Allport’s characteristicmodes seem to be sensing and thinking. He was a collector of dataand his writing is straightforward. He assembled evidence to supporta conclusion and was cautious about theorizing beyond the limits ofthe collected data. In Jung, on the other hand, intuition and feelingdominate. He presents big ideas whole and offers pronouncementssupported by evidence. For Jung, the evidence runs out before the

26 Id. at 583.27 Id. at 611.28 Id. at 544.



theory.29 As my interest in his work suggests, Jung’s categories reso-nate deeply with me. I have repeatedly tested as an introvert, withintuition as my dominant function and feeling as my auxiliary func-tion. While I rather like being the center of attention and enjoy alively party, I tire easily at large gatherings, often seek the edges of biggroups and gravitate, after a while, to a quiet spot to recharge duringconferences. I live in my head. I have also long been fascinated bymy own tendency to see ideas and concepts whole and jump to conclu-sions about the rightness or wrongness of arguments first and thenanalyze them later. My subjective experience has led me to writeabout decision making in the law in an effort to understand that expe-rience.30 But as Jung says of the introverted, intuitive type, I haveoften found my words inadequate to convey my inner experience, andI know I continue to confuse others as I continue to perplex myself.31

29 Dividing people into groups is one of the attractions of type theory - for those whoenjoy categorizing. Researching this project, I read work by Francis Galton, who first con-sidered the question of heritability of aptitude after Darwin, Charles Spearman, the first tohypothesize the existence of a unitary general intelligence factor, Gordon Allport, who isdiscussed above, Louis Thurstone, whose work in factor analysis significantly advancedpsychometrics between the World Wars and David Wechsler, the creator of the WechslerIntelligence Scale. Their work is filled with examples of the impulse to know the world bynoting, counting, and classifying the constituent parts of things. This is the world of theextrovert, alive to sensation; a world in which data flows from the outside to the mind andthe bits adds up to understanding. Speaking broadly, allusively, and in a manner conduciveto those given to intuition, these minds looked outward to build theory.

On the other hand, there are those for whom theory and theme are the place to start,and data is collected to elucidate theory, not discover it. Reading the work of Jean Piaget,Carl Jung, William James, Alfred Binet, and Howard Gardner, one encounters minds look-ing inward to generate theories and then outward to collect data. Theirs is the world of theintrovert given to intuition.

All ten of these thinkers offered deep and lasting insights in the nature of humanintelligence through the closely linked enterprises of theorizing and collecting data. Andwhile Jung warned that many people must be studied carefully before one can be confidentof categorizing them correctly, for illustrative purposes, the work of the first five, with itscharacteristic counting and crafted statements of narrower theory suggests energy flowingmore easily outward to the object and careful attention to sensation. In their work, in-sightful description is an important kind of understanding. For the latter group, psychicenergy flowed to the subject and their deeper but less lucid theories suggest greater accessto intuition than sensation. In their work, theory and theme are important ways of under-standing. The two groups are of two types.

30 See Ian Weinstein, Lawyering in the State of Nature: Instinct and Automaticity inLegal Problem Solving, 23 VT. L. REV. 1 (1998); see also Ian Weinstein, Don’t BelieveEverything You Think: Cognitive Bias in Legal Decision Making, 9 CLINICAL L. REV. 783(2003).

31 See JUNG, supra note 2, at 510 (“Therewith, he also deprives himself of any influenceupon [the world] because he remains unintelligible. His language is not that which is com-monly spoken - it becomes too subjective.”).



III. TYPE THEORY IN THE MODERN CLASSROOM

Type theory, with distinct traces of Jung, is evident in the work ofcontemporary educational theorists. The categories of sensation/intui-tion and feeling/thinking, understood through an information process-ing and decision making lens, underlie the idea of cognitive styles orpreferences in information processing and learning. Theorists in thisaspect of personality type theory, as applied to education, includeHerman Witkin and, with a more psychometric twist, Robert Stern-berg.32 Cognitive learning or thinking style theories or instrumentscan usefully be understood as the cognitive science/informationprocessing take on personality.33

Herman Witkin was an influential researcher in the 1960s and70s. He generated strong results with two rather simple tests: the rodand frame34 and the embedded figure.35 In the rod and frame proto-col, subjects are asked to align a rod set in a frame that is not square

32 See FLEMING & MILLS, supra note 13.33 Most would agree that cognitive style is an aspect of personality but some, like

Witkin, would argue that style is a deeper category that cuts across personality, aptitudeand affect. See Herman A. Witkin, Carol Ann Moore, Donald R. Goodenough & PatriciaW. Cox, Field-Dependent and Field- Independent Cognitive Styles and Their EducationalImplications, 47 REV. OF EDUC. RES. 1, 10 (1977) (Cognitive style includes “a broad di-mension of individual differences that extends across both perceptual and intellectual ac-tivities. Because what is at issue is the characteristic approach the person brings with himto a wide range of situations - we called it his ‘style’- and because the approach encom-passes both his perceptual and intellectual activities - we spoke of it as his ‘cognitivestyle’.”).

34 The rod and frame tests orientation. This is a static version. Steven J. Gilbert, FieldDependence and Autokinetic Suggestibility Research Project, ST. U. OF N.Y. ONEONTA,http://employees.oneonta.edu/gilbersj/autokinetic.htm (last updated Jan. 31, 2003). Sub-jects may also be placed in a dark room and view an illuminated, tilted frame while sittingin a chair angled to match the frame. In that posture, they are asked to manipulate a rodand align it to vertical.

35 The embedded figure test presents simple forms in a complex figure. The goal is toidentify the simple forms. http://eweb.furman.edu/~einstein/general/pers/253.jpg. SeeHERMAN A. WITKIN & DONALD R. GOODENOUGH, COGNITIVE STYLES: ESSENCE AND ORI-

GINS (1981) for an explanation of the Group Embedded Figures test.



with the natural horizon. Some will orient the frame and rod to thehorizon, while others will orient the rod to the frame and ignore thehorizon. In the embedded figures test, subjects either see the wholeand parts, or only the parts. As Witkin described it, some lose thefigure in the field and orient themselves by the immediate environ-ment, while others see the figure but not the field and orient them-selves by the natural horizon or other external referent.

A substantial, if now dated and contested, body of research foundconnections among the ways those in each category learn. Those whoorient themselves by the natural horizon and see the embeddedfigures display “field independence,” a “cognitive style” that predictsthat one will attend less to the social environment and be more com-fortable with loosely-structured material and abstractions.36 Thosewho lose the figure in the background are field dependent; they willattend more to social relationships and tend to learn better in groupsand by example than by individualized hypothesis generation and test-ing. Field dependence is a simple, binary classification which definestwo types. While this kind of opposition invites essentialism, like uni-tary intelligence, it also illuminates an important axis for classroomteachers. Field dependence/independence arrays learners by their rel-ative preference for more abstract or more concrete analysis andreasoning.

While Witkin’s work was influential for a time, it came to be criti-cized on two grounds. First, field dependence varies predictably withperformance on standard intelligence tests, suggesting that it is notmeasuring the independent factor of learning or cognitive style.37

36 Witkin, Moore, Goodenough & Cox, supra note 33, at 12-13 (“[i]n contrast to the‘with-people’ orientation of field-dependent persons, field-independent persons tend tohave a more impersonal orientation . . . [and] are more likely to be interested in the ab-stract and theoretical.”).

37 Frank McKenna’s findings, for example, conflict with Witkin’s view that field depen-dence is a cognitive style. McKenna asked, “[a]re measures of field dependence measuresof personality, cognitive style, or ability? The substantial and consistent correlations withstandard ability measures, in comparison to the inconsistent and low correlations with per-sonality measures makes the ability explanation more plausible.” See Frank P. McKenna,Field Dependence and Personality: A Re-examination, 11 SOC. BEHAV.& PERSONALITY:INT’L J. 51, 53 (1983). Additionally, “in reviewing the relationship between the EmbeddedFigures Test and standard measures of ability, [McKenna] found significant correlationswith general intelligence tests.” Id. at 52. Richard Riding and Indra Cheema also criticizedthat “[t]he cognitive style construct has been elusive; this is partly due to the fact that manyresearchers working within the learning/cognitive style research, fail to mention the exis-tence of other types of styles. As a result, like the blind man and the elephant, differenttheorists have been working with different concepts and have referred to them as a ‘cogni-tive/learning style.’ Indeed, attempts to unite these scattered schools of thought have beenextremely rare.” Richard Riding & Indra Cheema, Cognitive Styles – An Overview andIntegration, 11 EDUC. PSYCHOL. 193(1991). But see Robert J. Sternberg & Elena L.Grigorenko, Are Cognitive Styles Still in Style?, 52 AM. PSYCHOL. 700, 710 (1997) (conclud-



Many came to believe that Witkin’s instrument was identifying thosewith higher intelligence as tested by Wechsler-style tests and who, as afunction of that higher intelligence, could better understand and ma-nipulate abstract concepts. Second, the model came to be viewed astoo simplistic, and more complex models of cognitive styles came intofashion. While others have continued to mine the vein Witkin identi-fied,38 other models enjoy greater contemporary influence.

But Witkin’s model captures the important role that the axis ofabstraction and concreteness plays in teaching and learning, particu-larly in university classrooms. But type theory only addresses thelearner’s side of the equation. As the pioneering work of Newell andSimon showed, domains of knowledge each have their own character-istic structures,39 and the development of expertise is contextsensitive.

Even as the learner has his or her own preference, the optimallevel of abstraction at which any concept should be presented in thetraditional classroom or seminar setting is also context or substancesensitive. Particular bodies of knowledge and practices are bestpresented at greater or lesser levels of abstraction or concreteness,depending on both the learner and the structure or nature of the areaof knowledge.40 Most American graduate schools approach literaturemore abstractly than they approach social work, although there arevery theoretical social work schools and less abstract literaturedepartments.

So field dependence, to the extent it is not just another name forintelligence, is also only the learner’s side of the idea that differentconcepts are optimally presented to learners at higher or lower levels

ing that learning style models have a rich history and have a promising place in the future“at the border between personality and cognition.”).

38 See Linda M. Bastone & Heather A. Wood, Individual Differences in the Ability toDecode Emotional Facial Expressions, 34 PSYCHOL.: J. HUM. BEHAV. 32 (1997). Bastoneand Wood used tests of introversion/extraversion and field-dependence-independence tomeasure differences in individuals’ abilities to decode emotional facial expressions. Theyfound that there was little difference in the ability of extroverts and introverts in decodingfacial expressions. However, the results indicated that, when faced with more difficult de-coding tests, field-independent participants were better able to interpret facial expressionsthan those who were field-dependent.

39 ALLEN NEWELL & HERBERT A. SIMON, HUMAN PROBLEM SOLVING (1972) (discuss-ing human thinking, information processing and human performance in problem solving,and outlining a “problem space theory” of problem solving).

40 See id. See also Harold Pashler et al., Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence, 9PSYCHOL. SCI. IN THE PUB. INT. 105 (2009), available at http://psi.sagepub.com/content/9/3/105.full.pdf+html (criticizing the increasing popularity of learning-style approaches in edu-cation, arguing that there is a lack of evidence that these approaches provide any greaterbenefit for students yet concluding that many learning-style approaches have not yet beentested and that additional research may be warranted).



of abstraction. To take an example from criminal law, the central rea-son for the fundamental requirement of mens rea can be understoodas protecting or vindicating the role of the free choice to do wrong inassigning moral culpability. While I think that the free choice to dowrong maxim captures a powerful and fundamental construct, it isalso quite an abstract formulation, both from the perspective of whatmost learners would find useful in studying criminal law and also fromthe perspective of how the idea of mens rea is used by most lawyers.

If more field independent learners will tend to be comfortableentering into this area of knowledge with that abstract formulation,they will still need to delve into the doctrinal details of strict liabilityelements and offenses to understand the concept with sufficient depthto use it professionally. Whether or not we start with the abstractframing, another concrete way to understand the role of the idea offree choice to do wrong in criminal law is to study particular criminallaw doctrines limiting and specifying the application of strict liability.That level of analysis is both more accessible to many learners andbetter able to capture the idea as understood within the relevant pro-fessional community. The lesson of Witkin’s work is not that somelearners are ninjas and some are pirates41 when it comes to abstractversus concrete presentation of material. Rather, the central lesson isthat abstraction/concreteness is an important axis. Optimal teachingwill involve intentional choices about the level of abstraction at whichto present the material.

Good classroom teachers will need to account for the ideas theyare teaching, their own taste for abstraction versus concrete presenta-tion (which can be tricky to determine), as well as for the learnersthey encounter. Only repeated cycles of evaluation and focus groupshave helped me appreciate my own taste for or tendency toward ab-stract, decontextualized presentations. Successful teaching will alsoaccount for the structure of the material being presented. My ownefforts to teach legal interviewing in a large class setting were alsoinstructive failures; I taught quite abstractly, and the class was not suc-cessful. General interviewing theory still seems to me too weak tocarry that burden, but many learn this material quite deeply throughthe study of more concrete texts, along with simulation work and dis-cussion of related theories from other fields.42

Witkin’s work and the embedded figures test was an early empiri-cal effort to identify learning styles. A more sophisticated and influ-ential example is Neil Fleming’s VARK model, which identifies four

41 See Pirates Versus Ninjas, supra note 11.42 See, e.g., DAVID A. BINDER, PAUL BERGMAN, PAUL R. TREMBLAY & IAN S. WEIN-

STEIN, LAWYERS AS COUNSELORS: A CLIENT-CENTERED APPROACH (3d ed. 2012).



learning preferences: visual, aural, reading, and kinesthetic.43 InFleming’s view, each learner has a preference for taking in informa-tion in a particular way. He encourages students and teachers to dis-cover student preferences and adapt teaching and learning to favoreach student’s preferred mode.44 VARK is one of the best known ex-amples of the current cognitive style literature at the heart of the con-temporary teaching idea that learning is individualized and differentpeople learn in different ways. It builds helpfully upon the basic in-sight that individuals can usefully be grouped by how they prefer tolearn or know the world, but what is the teacher to do with thisinsight?

One standard payoff of the personality/cognitive/thinking/learn-ing styles literature is that students learn best through their preferredmode and teachers should match their presentation to the preferencesof the learners. This advice seems of limited value in the law schoolclassroom. First, these are styles, not exclusive categories. Learnersmay prefer one or the other but the impact of style differences is notlikely to be that great to begin with, particularly among graduate stu-dents with enough academic success to get to law school. Most lawschool learners have proven their ability to learn in a variety ofmodes. Second, as we saw above, style is also context sensitive andthe preferred style should also account for the structure of the mate-rial, as well as the learner’s preference. Third, law school classroomsare heterogeneous. Although we can predict that graduate studentswill likely be more comfortable with learning by reading, writing, andoral presentation than the general population, matching preferencesonly works by exploiting differences among a given group of learners.Unless we test and separate our students by preference, we cannotbegin to exploit learning style preferences by matching.45 Yet somepayoff for law faculty may still be gleaned from this aspect of thestyles literature, which it must be noted in fairness, was developedwith primary and secondary education in mind and focuses largely onconcerns quite different from those of law school faculty.

So, if style theorists have not yet unlocked the key to learning,they have adduced much evidence for the variation in learners andpowerfully shown that there are many different ways to present agiven concept. This literature provides a rich vocabulary for identify-

43 See FLEMING & MILLS, supra note 13.44 See id. at 138-39.45 See Harold Pashler et al., supra note 40; see also Aida M. Alaka, Learning Styles:

What Difference Do the Differences Make?, 5 CHARLESTON L. REV. 133 (2010-2011)(describing controversy surrounding learning styles and its impact on legal education, par-ticularly whether learning styles can help professors improve their teaching).



ing alternative teaching modes. Many law teachers may never haveconsidered the role of bodily movement, or kinesthetics, in law teach-ing. A little bit of kinesthetic teaching, in which one repeats combina-tions of phrases and gestures during the class,46 can go a very long wayin sparking a moment of interest and energy. Once I discovered that Iam a very read/write oriented learner, I began to look for opportuni-ties to introduce visual elements into my teaching through my use ofclass slides, graphics and pictures. So another easy payoff is becominga more interesting, engaging teacher by expanding one’s repertoire ofpresentation techniques. The categories of read/write, kinesthetic,oral, and visual do not exhaust the possibilities for presentationmodes, but they offer a good starting checklist.

There are also two deeper payoffs in these ideas about learningstyles and modes of presentation. First, as noted above, we can alsothink about the structure of the material, not only the preference ofthe learner, as we consider how to present a given idea. When I makea linguistic point in class, I want to have the language in view for eve-ryone, whether by slide or by handout. Taxonomic points are oftenwell conveyed visually, more abstract ideas are usually conveyed bylecture and reading, and process oriented ideas will often benefit froman active approach – small group discussion or other activity. We canthink about matching the mode of presentation to the structure of thematerial we are trying to convey.

The second deeper application of the insight that varying modesof presentation are an important ingredient in successful teachingcomes from David Kolb’s Experiential Learning model47 and suggeststhat the differing modalities can be understood as building one uponanother, rather than providing alternatives for each other. Kolb isoften thought of as among the style theorists and is known for hisLearning Style Inventory,48 but his idea of the cycle of experiential

46 For a particularly energetic example, see Chris Biffle, Whole Brain Teaching: theBasics, YOUTUBE (Mar. 4, 2008), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebeWEgvGm2Y.

47 See DAVID A. KOLB & RONALD E. FRY, TOWARD AN APPLIED THEORY OF EXPERI-

ENTIAL LEARNING (1974).48 See DAVID A. KOLB, THE LEARNING STYLE INVENTORY: TECHNICAL MANUAL

(1976). Kolb developed the Learning Style Inventory (LSI), which measures learningstyles along two dimensions: abstract-concrete and active-reflective. Through the two axes,Kolb identified four significant patterns of learning styles: the Converger, the Diverger, theAssimilator, and the Accommodator. A Converger prefers to learn by Abstract Conceptu-alization and Active Experimentation and is strong in practical application of ideas. Byusing hypothetical-deductive reasoning, a Converger focuses best on specific problems.With narrow interests and a preference for dealing with things rather than people, a Con-verger is typically unemotional. A Diverger, on the other hand, learns best through Con-crete Experience and Reflective Observation and has stronger imaginative abilities. ADiverger prefers to view situations from many perspectives and performs best when gener-ating ideas through “brainstorming sessions.” Unlike a Converger, a Diverger tends to be



learning is also a distinctive and important contribution. The basicidea, which resonates with the work of Donald Schon49 and the cogni-tive science expertise model, is that optimal learning proceeds in cy-cles of abstraction and concrete application and reflective observationand active experimentation.50 In Kolb’s model, the learner cyclesthrough different modes of information intake and processing, build-ing knowledge in that activity. Kolb suggests, and it accords with myexperience, that no one way of learning and no single moment oflearning is complete by itself.

Kolb is a powerful theorist, and a teacher may be tempted tomake sure that each class session cycles from the concrete to the ab-stract and from the reflective to the experimental. But the problem offinding the right level on which to apply the idea reemerges. Experi-ence suggests that focusing on the individual class as the unit wouldpromote confusion, not deep learning. If learning is a cycle, how bigare the cycles, and what is a whole? A three-year program of legaleducation offers ample opportunities to present complete cycles of ed-ucation of various magnitudes. Individual classes sometimes offer op-portunities for complete learning in Kolb’s sense, some courses offerthose opportunities, and the whole program can be understood as acomplete cycle.

In gross outline, the typical American law school emphasizes ab-straction and reflection in the large first-year classes and then movesto opportunities for concrete application and active experimentation.Whether students find their concrete, active opportunities with semi-nars, journals or clinics, Kolb’s idea of learning as a cycle of activitiesshould spur us to think about the variety, sequencing, and pacing ofthe teaching and learning opportunities we offer in law school. Theemergence of new modes of teaching and learning has been a signaldevelopment of the last thirty years of legal education. While no sin-gle class can offer every student the range of learning he or she needs

interested in people, has broad cultural interests, and is more imaginative and emotionalthan his diametric opposite. An Assimilator, whose learning strengths are Abstract Con-ceptualization and Reflective Observation, thrives in developing theoretical models andsucceeds through inductive reasoning. An Assimilator usually prefers abstract concepts topractical use of theories. An Assimilator’s opposite, an Accommodator, learns bestthrough Concrete Experience and Active Experimentation. An Accommodator is best atdoing, performing, and carrying out plans and experiments. Out of the four categories,Accommodators tend to take the most risks and can best adapt to immediate circum-stances. David A. Kolb, Learning Styles and Disciplinary Differences, in THE MODERN

AMERICAN COLLEGE: RESPONDING TO THE NEW REALITIES OF DIVERSE STUDENTS AND A

CHANGING SOCIETY 232, 238 (Arthur W. Chickering et al. eds., 1981).49 See SCHON, supra note 4.50 These theories build on the seminal insights of Jean Piaget, whose constructivist edu-

cational theory posits that each learner builds individualized cognitive structures. See JEAN

PIAGET, THE CHILD’S CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD (1928).



to become a reflective practitioner, we should strive to give every lawstudent a complex, complete educational experience by the end oftheir three years with us.

If we accept that people can usefully be divided into personalitytypes for purposes of theorizing about teaching and learning, I haveargued that in the large classroom, personality theory encourages usto understand the type of knowledge we are trying to teach and toknow ourselves before we struggle to figure out the learning styles ofa heterogeneous class of twenty or more students.

IV. TYPE THEORY IN PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND SMALL

GROUP WORK

In smaller classes and particularly in the experiential curriculum,teachers often have more opportunity to address individual differ-ences51 among students. Clinical and simulation courses can showcasea wide range of differences in cognitive style, manner, and presenta-tion among our students. Those differences shape how they interactwith others and function in groups. Type theory provides one usefulframework for teaching law students the skills they need to work withclients and other lawyers.

My own skills-oriented and live-client clinic teaching has been in-fluenced by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a contemporaryframing of Jung’s insights.52 I have discussed the MBTI and relatedinstruments with many colleagues and acquaintances. It turns out thatthere are two kinds of people in the world – those who are intriguedby these instruments and those who find them odious efforts to pig-eonhole individuals and push unique pegs into a few simple holes.And if this approach seems silly to some, I know it resonates forothers.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a proprietary instrument, de-veloped by the mother-daughter team of Katharine Cook Briggs andIsabel Briggs Myers during World War II. It measures type along fouraxes – the three that Jung set out – extroversion/introversion,53 sens-ing/intuition,54 thinking/feeling55 – and adds judgment/perception, orthe tendency to resolve or keep questions open.

As noted above, Jung identified one attitudinal axis, introversion

51 In the sense of varying aptitudes, interests, and styles, not in the sense of studentshaving disagreements with one another.

52 MBTI®Basics, THE MYERS & BRIGGS FOUNDATION (last visited June 12, 2013),http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/.

53 See supra pp. 6-10.54 Id.55 Id.



and extraversion, and two axes of function, thinking/feeling and sensa-tion/intuition. Jung categorized thinking and sensation as rational andfeeling and intuition as irrational. The rational is subject to changeupon reflection, while the irrational presents as not subject to analysisand does not change with reflection. In our mental lives, we may beopen to additional reflection – this is a preference for the rationalfunctions of thinking and sensing. In this mode, our conclusions aresubject to change, as we think more or take in more sensation fromthe outside world. If we have a preference for the irrational functions,feeling and intuition, we will tend to be closed to additional reflection.In this mode, our conclusions are not as subject to change and, whenchange occurs, it will more likely seem abrupt and inexplicable. Theidea is that intuitions and feelings do not change predictably withreflection.

Jung’s three pairs capture internal psychic experience viewedfrom the perspective of the subject. The MBTI scale adds an outward-looking dimension, focusing more upon our behaviors and expressedpreferences for decision-making than upon our internal experience.Drawing on suggestive language in Personality Types,56 as well asJung’s later recognition of additional types beyond the original eight,Myers identified perceiving/judging as the fourth dimension of per-sonality type, marked by one’s preferences around decision makingand planning. The perceiver keeps options open and is slow to reach aconclusion. The judging type reaches conclusions quickly and tends tomaintain them. We have all been in groups that need to choose arestaurant. There are those who decide quickly and will not be dis-suaded by even persuasive evidence for a better choice, while thereare others who are still open to change even as the appetizers areserved.

The perceiving/judging pair focuses upon an important, recurringset of challenges for small groups seeking to collaborate. For me, therestaurant conversation, and its many variants, was a real challengeand used to make me very anxious. Early in my teaching career, Itaught and supervised with three other people. I have since come tounderstand two of those colleagues as strong perceivers, but at thetime they just seemed to me continually to change their minds and tohave no regard for schedules or deadlines. I experienced our work aschaotic and ill-planned, and, although I liked them very well, I alsofelt that my views had little traction with them. One day they wouldseem convinced by me and the next day they were revisiting the ques-tion, citing some (to me) irrelevant detail that suddenly loomed large

56 See JUNG, supra note 2.



for them. Soon, I reorganized my work life, teaming with other col-leagues and working more on my own. While that change posed chal-lenges of other sorts, I found those arrangements preferable.

Even as I found a more pleasing way to organize my work life,the challenges I had faced with my two colleagues continued to puzzleme. Over time and with insights gleaned from the MBTI, I came tounderstand myself as a strong judger. Reflection upon my tendency todecisiveness helped me better understand both the cognitive and af-fective roots of this aspect of my personality. From the cognitive per-spective, I saw that I was strongly favoring one kind of knowing and,as Jung puts it, submerging my auxiliary function into my unconscious.While there is much to say for the cognitive process of recognition,automaticity, and rapid decision-making based on intuition, there isalso much to say for the accumulation of and structured reflectionupon sensation.57 But I have to work to remain open to sensation.That is one thing I have learned from Jung and the development of histheories in the MBTI.

V. THE MYERS BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR

The MBTI identifies sixteen types on a four by four matrix,known as the type table:58

MBTI TYPE TABLE WITH SAMPLE PREFERENCE CAREERS59

ISTJ ISFJ INFJ INTJIntroverted Introverted Introverted IntrovertedSensing Sensing Intuitive IntuitiveThinking Feeling Feeling ThinkingJudging Judging Judging Judging

Accounting Counselor Psychologist ScientistEngineer NursePolice officer Artist

57 See DANIEL KAHNEMAN, THINKING, FAST AND SLOW (2011).58 Where I/E is introversion/extroversion, S/N is sensing/intuition, T/F is thinking/feel-

ing and J/P is judging/perceiving.59 This arrangement of the Myers Briggs Types in a four by four matrix is standard. See

Robert I. Winer, Type and Career (2000), http://www.winerfoundation.org/Myers-Briggs/Types%20and%20Career.htm. The sample preference careers are illustrative and notempirically based. They will offer useful examples for some.



ISFP INFP INTPISTPIntroverted Introverted IntrovertedIntrovertedSensing Intuitive IntuitiveSensingFeeling Feeling ThinkingThinkingPerceiving Perceiving PerceivingPerceiving

LawyerBookkeeper College professorFire fighterMechanicPilotChefPolice officer

ESTP ESFP ENFP ENTPExtroverted Extroverted Extroverted ExtrovertedSensing Sensing Intuitive IntuitiveThinking Thinking Feeling ThinkingPerceiving Perceiving Perceiving Perceiving

Chef Veterinarian Clergy ActorNews reporter Social workerFire fighter Musician

ESTJ ESFJ ENFJ ENTJExtroverted Extroverted Extroverted ExtrovertedSensing Sensing Intuitive IntuitiveThinking Feeling Feeling ThinkingJudging Judging Judging Judging

Auditor Nurse Artist LawyerOffice manager Social workerElectrical engineer Bookkeeper

The grid reflects Jung’s first order division of the types into one ofthe two attitudes, introversion or extraversion. Not surprisingly intro-version, the characteristic mode of the theorizer, apt to build grids likethis, is arrayed across the top of the grid. So, those for whom libido orpsychic energy flows inward are across the top. Extroverts, whose en-ergy flows outward, from the subject to the object, are in the bottomrows. So, scientists and police officers are across the top, and chefsand actors are on the bottom half, not that there are not introvertedpolice officers and extroverted scientists. I have put lawyers in boththe top and bottom to emphasize the plasticity of these categories.They describe tendencies and preferences.

Next, the chart groups according to the two functions, perceptionand thinking. In perception, sensing or intuition may dominate. Onthe grid, sensing is arrayed on the left half and intuition is on the right.The careers on the left side may better suit those oriented toward theoutside world while those on the right often suit toward abstractionand the inner life. In thinking, feeling or thought may be preferred.On the grid, thinking occupies the outside columns while feeling is inthe middle pair. The accountants, scientists, auditors, and lawyers sur-



round or contain the artists, psychologists, and professors.The last pair, perception/judging, is arrayed by row. The judgers

are at the top and bottom while the perceivers occupy the middle.Overall, extroverts are at the bottom and sensers are on the left, re-flecting Jung’s view that the primary organization is according to atti-tude and irrational function.

There are endless descriptions of the types. Some see real in-sight, while others find them as compelling as horoscopes or fortunecookies; academics have raised more fundamental questions.60 Thetypology poses a grave risk of the Forer61 or Barnum effect, in whichwe exhibit the tendency to find ourselves in any set of positivedescriptors.62 It is important to rely upon the test instruments thathave been developed, not to simply see oneself in a list of attributes.And as the slogan goes, the types are a tool, not a box, useful in somesettings and enjoying a modest reputation in the legal academy.63

60 See, e.g., David J. Pittenger, Cautionary Comments Regarding the Myers-Briggs TypeIndicator, 57 CONSULTING PSYCHOL. J.: PRAC. & RES. 210 (2005) (evaluating problemsassociated with use of the MBTI and concluding that the sixteen types present too narrowa classification scheme); cf. David J. Pittenger, Measuring the MBTI . . . And Coming UpShort, 54 J. CAREER PLAN. & EMP. 48 (1993). See also Lawrence J. Stricker & John Ross,An Assessment of Some Structural Properties of the Jungian Personality Typology, 68 J. OF

ABNORMAL & SOC. PSYCHOL. 62, 70 (1964) (concluding that results obtained using theMyers-Briggs Type Indicator signified “either that Jung’s typology is not consistent withthe real world, or the Indicator does not correspond to the theoretical formulation of thetypology, i.e., the Indicator does not operationally define the typology.”).

61 See Betram R. Forer, The fallacy of personal validation: A classroom demonstrationof gullibility, 44 J. OF ABNORMAL AND SOC. PSYCHOL. 118-123 (1949).

62 Donald G. Paterson called this phenomenon “personality description after the man-ner of P.T. Barnum,” with whom we associate the phrase “there’s a sucker born everyminute.” Paul E. Meehl, Wanted – A Good Cookbook, 11 AM. PSYCHOLOGIST 262, 266(1956) (proposing the adoption of “the phrase Barnum effect to stigmatize those pseudo-successful clinical procedures in which personality descriptions from tests are made to fitthe patient largely or wholly by virtue of their triviality . . . in a context of assertions ofdenials which carry high confidence simply because of the population base rates, regardlessof the test’s validity”) (emphasis original); see also C.R. Snyder, Randee J. Shenkel &Carol R. Lowery, Acceptance of Personality Interpretations: The “Barnum Effect” and Be-yond, 45 J. OF CONSULTING AND CLINICAL PSYCHOL. 104 (1977) (expanding upon the vari-ables that contribute to the acceptance of personality interpretation).

63 See, e.g., R. Lisle Baker, Using Insights About Perception and Judgment from theMyers-Briggs Type Indicator Instrument As an Aid to Mediation, 9 HARV. NEGOT. L. REV.115 (2004) (exploring the application of the MBTI and Jungian psychology to mediation,particularly in understanding variations of human behavior, and concluding that despitesome skepticism and limitations, the MBTI can offer substantial insight for mediators);FRANK COFFIELD ET AL., SHOULD WE BE USING LEARNING STYLES? WHAT RESEARCH

HAS TO SAY TO PRACTICE, LEARNING & SKILLS RES. CENTRE (2004), available at http://itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/LSRC_LearningStyles.pdf (examining thirteen ma-jor learning style models and how they might be put into practice, concluding that ateacher’s choice of learning style model is fundamental); M.H. Sam Jacobson, Using theMyers-Briggs Type Indicator to Assess Learning Style: Type or Stereotype?, 33 WILLAM-

ETTE L. REV. 261 (1997) (describing the MBTI, evaluating its limitations, particularly its



While there has been some academic analysis of the MBTI, it isnot a generally accepted, peer-reviewed instrument. It remains morein the province of human resource and business consultants than psy-chologists. But for all the qualifiers – and with regard for its Jungianroots – the MBTI types have proven valuable in three dimensions ofthe work I have done with individual students and small groups. First,I think I have gained insight into my own strengths and challenges as amember of a team, although others are likely better positioned than Ito judge if I have improved my ability to work on a team. Second, thetypes have given a frame and language for helping others better un-derstand their own preferences and how those preferences may shapetheir characteristic contributions and roles in group work. Third, typetheory often comes to mind as I supervise student teams in my clinicalteaching, and as I facilitate group work across the range of committeesthat an active faculty member and senior academic administratorencounters.

The most significant thing I believe I have learned about myselffrom the MBTI is that I am a judger rather than a perceiver. PerhapsI am just slow to recognize simple truths, but once I could understandmy tendency to decide quickly and move on as my style or type, ratherthan as a universal experience, I stopped seeing those who were slowto make decisions as flawed or trying to thwart my will, or both. As Icame to understand my own personality, I could better appreciate its(my) characteristic strengths and weaknesses. That appreciation, inturn, made me better able to see my colleagues’ strengths. And onvery good days, I appreciate the ways those with preferences for sen-sation and perceiving can help me try to remain open to the possibilitythat I am wrong about something that seems obviously so to me.

Insights about my own preferences have led me to attend to thosewho display unusually strong tendencies in one of the personality typedimensions in my work with individual students. For example, whencritiquing a student who has interviewed a client or witness, I haveencountered students who ask many very detailed questions and con-clude the session by saying he or she needs to learn more before form-

stereotyping, lack of validity and lack of reliability, and proposing an alternative tool that,recognizing the ongoing nature of learning, does not merely provide a static assessment oflearning style); Vernelia R. Randall, The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, First Year Law Stu-dents and Performance, 26 CUMB. L. REV. 63, 103 (1996) (“While understanding learningstyles is not a cure-all for the ills of legal education, it is a start toward helping the studentbecome a better self-learner.”); Paul Van R. Miller, Don Peters & Martha Peters, MaybeThat’s Why I Do That: Psychological Type Theory, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator &Learning Legal Interviewing, 35 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REV. 169 (1990) (discussing the applicationof type theory to the development of legal interviewing skills and concluding that use ofthe MBTI allows students to gain self-awareness and appreciate personality differences inbuilding relationships with clients).



ing an opinion. While I used to reduce this to an affective issue – mytake was often that the student lacked the confidence to say what heor she thought – now I am more likely to first see the person as asensing perceiving type or someone who prefers to build knowledgeup from details and remains open to new information. With this stu-dent, I am likely to raise questions about efficiency, the problem ofdecision-making under conditions of uncertainty, and the need to con-sciously balance the good of more complete information against theneed to take timely action in the world.

Of course, I also encounter the converse, students who ask just afew questions and jump to diagnosis, advice, or conclusions. Thesefolks almost always elicit a little story of recognition which I finishwith the tag line, if I did not jump to conclusions, I would not get anyexercise at all. While once I would have judged these students as ego-tists, now I explore questions I think helpful to the intuitionist judger.For these students, conversation about the cognitive tendencies thatmay make the gap between what some of us think and what we actu-ally say, can be useful. Often, it is also helpful to analyze the benefitsand costs of rapid decision-making with these students.

In addition to applying these ideas in teaching lawyering skills,they are useful when working with individual students when they de-velop research plans. Here too, awareness of the tendency of sensingfeeling types to work up from facts and for intuitive thinking types towork down from larger concepts, can be useful. Often, I ask studentswhether they prefer to start a legal research project with cases or trea-tises as a way of sparking reflection and discussion of the impact of thesensing/intuition and feeling/thinking axes on research. I often sug-gest that students identify their style as a matter of preference andalso think about the context of the problem at hand.

For example, in my appellate clinic, students must research stan-dards of review. Sometimes we need to better understand the law ofstandards of review to make strategic decisions about what issues tobrief, and sometimes we must better understand the law in the area tosharpen particular arguments. For those with strong tendencies oneway or the other, both kinds of research might well begin with eitherspecific cases (sensing feeling) or with treatises, law review articles,and other overview material (intuitive thinking). But here again, as Idiscussed above in relation to large classroom teaching, it is also use-ful to consider the context or structure of the issues at hand. Researchaimed at strategic decision making may more usefully be pursuedfrom the top down (from treatise or law review article to cases) thanfrom the bottom up (from cases to more general material).

Type can also be useful when I work with individual students who



must choose a position or make a decision. Too often, students ex-amine all sides of the issue but do not reach a firm conclusion. Whilethe tendency of a novice to remain uncommitted and explore all sidesis understandable, a law student should develop the skill of formingand expressing relevant and cogent opinions. For some, discussion ofthe judging/perceiving axis can provide a useful alternative framing toa more judgmental conversation about indecision and jumping to con-clusion. Of course personality is not the only ingredient in forming alegal opinion. Most of the conversation is usually about the law, thelegal materials and the arguments. But often enough, reference totype is a very useful leavening and plays a distinctive role in the learn-ing process.

In all three situations, interviewing, researching, and forming anopinion, it can be useful for those of us strongly inclined to use a par-ticular mode to consciously access the opposing attitude or function.We have that ability, but we tend to leave it submerged in our uncon-scious. One lens for the problem of the law student who asks very fewquestions and jumps to a conclusion is to see her as an intuitivejudger. The student who does not express an opinion on the heart ofthe matter may be indulging her sensing perceiving tendencies. Whentheir attention is focused using this framework, many understand howto (consciously) pay more attention to data or go with their intuition,as the case may be. This has proven a useful way to help studentsexpand their range and add to the ways he or she can respond tosituations.

Tending to style when fostering teamwork can also pay dividends.Small group work, (teams of two to five) is fertile ground to learnabout and apply these insights. First, small group work puts us in asetting in which type is often brought from the background to theforeground. While it can be quite hard for us to see personality typein ourselves, after all, it is just how we are, many of us can readily seepersonality in those with whom we work closely.64

While I have not yet read Jung with my own clinic or simulationclass students, two or three reflective conversations about collabora-tive processes can present ample opportunity to introduce the themes.When a team presents deadline- or decision-making conflicts, in addi-

64 See, e.g., Susan Bryant, Collaboration in Law Practice: A Satisfying and ProductiveProcess for a Diverse Profession, 17 VT. L. REV. 459 (1992-1993) (advocating teachinglawyers new skills to improve collaboration among lawyers and proposing exposing lawstudents to collaboration to develop these skills early in their professional development);Michael Meltsner, James V. Rowan & Daniel J. Givelber, The Bike Tour Leader’s Di-lemma: Talking About Supervision, 13 VT. L. REV. 399 (1989) (exploring issues arising inrelationships between lawyers and their supervisors and proposing a plan for functionalsupervision to further professional development).



tion to moving toward a useful and just resolution in the practical di-mension, there is the opportunity to go meta or turn toward theprocess. Often, individuals can progress from awareness of theirteammates’ tendencies to some insight into their own preferences andwelcome the opportunity to explore the integration of these insightsinto their professional identity.

When teams thrive, as they often do, type theory can provide aframe to describe successful group functioning. Sometimes patternsof cooperation through division of labor are evident – folks divide upthe work in ways that play to their strengths. In other cases, particularcontrasting viewpoints emerge as having shaped the discussion or ap-proach, and these can be understood from the perspective of type.But happy teams are alike, and it is easy enough to find ways to dis-cuss good results.

Each unhappy team, of course, needs individualized attention. Itmay be that no ready opportunity to apply type theory emerges in thecourse of a bad collaboration. But when team members fall into con-flict over scheduling and deadlines, type theory can be useful. Oftenenough, the student who is comfortable with an aggressive, front-loaded schedule is a judger, ready to plunge into the substance of thework and accustomed to meeting deadlines with time to spare. But asupervisor is fortunate if conflicts over the schedule emerge at theplanning phase; it takes a good degree of self-awareness for many torealize that a proposed schedule is not plausible for their work styleand some self-possession to raise the issue early. More typically, set-ting the schedule is a consensus moment, and it is only when the dead-line looms or has passed that conflict arises. Most of us imagine wewill meet the deadline when it is set.

But once a deadline is near or has come, teams often break down.Perhaps one member has completed his or her share of the work andanother is still raising questions, exploring new approaches, and wantsto extend the deadline. The early finisher too often sees the teammatewho is still working as indolent. The person still working may, in turn,see the other person as rushing and not taking care to get the taskdone correctly. In this very typical teamwork conflict, personalitytype theory offers a way to think beyond the loaded and divisive cate-gories of “rush job” and “last minute.” Talking with the team aboutthe judging and perceiving types can depersonalize the conflict andcreate room for each to see the strengths and weaknesses of his or herapproach. The judger is great with meeting deadlines but may ignoreimportant information or ideas that come to the fore late in the work.The perceiver is great with new information but may not meet a dead-line. Neither is right, and each must consider how his or her style fits



the context. It is one thing to seek extension of a self-imposed dead-line and quite another to flirt with missing a deadline set by a bindingrule.

But deadlines are one of the obvious places where type theorycan illuminate group process. When a group works to define and ana-lyze a problem, the effects of type can be more subtle but still signifi-cant. The extrovert and senser will typically begin the conversationand offer an initial framing. The introverted intuitive may need a bitmore time to gather energy and figure out what is going on inside hisor her head. Sometimes the extrovert is seen as quick and sometimeshe or she is seen as fatuous. The introvert may be perceived as criticalof others or slow; he or she may appear to lay in wait or to have fewerfresh ideas.

Group leaders can use type theory to monitor and regulate groupprocess. I have found it useful to observe how long it takes each teammember to voice his or her view, the degree of abstraction or con-creteness in the views expressed, and how open each person is to newinformation. Sometimes I use that information to nudge the process abit, asking direct questions of those who lurk and probing the unusu-ally decisive or indecisive. While it is not unusual for a team leader tomake sure everyone is participating and probe to develop somepoints, type theory gives me a process oriented framework throughwhich I can sort my impressions and helps me overcome my intuitive,judging tendency to cutoff conversation with an arbitrary decision. Ithink it would work in a similar way if I had the perceiver’s tendencyto extend conversations in the hope of gaining new information thatwould prove decisive.

When I work with small groups over a semester, I am also likelyto surface and name differences as matters of type or style, with theaim of giving my students explicit examples of how and why collabo-rating with teammates on problem definition and analysis adds value.I am always anxious to show my students that individual differencesare real, significant, and are not all captured by grades. If I can showthem consistent, readily identifiable dimensions in which they, andtheir teammates, differ from one another, they will be better equippedto function well in teams. No matter how persuaded I am that mystyle tends toward fast analysis and terse explication, I still find thatworking with others is often better corrective for my stylistic excessesthan all the careful self-monitoring and self-editing I can do.

While it is neither the only influence nor the only important thingto watch when people work together, some attention to type can behelpful to both individuals and groups. For individuals, particularlylaw students who want to strengthen their ability to work well in



groups, type theory provides a way to understand conflict with othersthat avoids the language of blame and judgment. Teammates whopush deadlines may not be lazy or indecisive. They may be working toincorporate additional information. Those who are quiet may actuallyhave quite a lot to say but need more time to speak. Simply providingan alternative vocabulary helps us see others in a different light.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes, solving a legal problem requires little more thanknowing the governing rule or legal principle. Often enough, how-ever, knowing the law is only the first step in a problem solving pro-cess that must also account for imperfect information, ill-structuredproblems, interpersonal dynamics, moral concerns, power, and thechallenges of navigating complex institutions. In my own teaching, Iaim to make sure every student knows the relevant law and is workingto develop the tools to use that knowledge effectively. Jungian per-sonality type theory is among the frameworks I have deployed to helpmy students, and myself, make sense of this very complicated process.It does not tell us everything we need to know, but it does offer auseful, non-judgmental framework for accounting for the challengesand opportunities that arise in the dimension of personality as welearn and as we work with the infinite variety of individuals we meetas students, clients, and in the myriad roles in which lawyers workwith others.

LEARNING AND LAWYERING ACROSS … Weinstein...LEARNING AND LAWYERING ACROSS PERSONALITY TYPES ......

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